Sunday 2 April 2017

The Ghost is alive and well.

Considering  Ghost In The Shell  let us start with a comparison.  In 1963 Porsche unveiled the 911 sports car.   Many believe it to be the greatest sports car ever made.     It was certainly innovative, even though it was built on the  previous Porsche 356.  The 911  performed wonderfully, winning many races and tours.   Over the years the car evolved.  In 1998 the air-cooled engine was replaced by a water-cooled unit and the body design underwent a major redesign.    Many owners of the previous models were outraged.   However,  even though a 2017 model does not share one component part with the 1963 model and would out-perform it in every test, they are both absolutely recognizable as 911s.      But  which is the better car?   Unless you are a Porsche owner or fan that might seem to be a stupid question, but I would not advise you to ask it at a Porsche owners club meeting.

In 1989 the Masamune Shirow produced the Japanese Manga comic book series The Ghost In The Shell, telling the tale of  the 21st century counter-cyberterrorism  Public Security Section 9, led by the cyber-cop Major Motoko Kasunagi.    This was like the Porsche 356, a brilliant achievement in the world of manga/anime.  In 1995 the Japanese animation studio  Production I. G. released the a feature film based on it and with the same title, directed by Mamoru Ochii.   James Cameron said it was "the first truly adult animation film to reach a level of literary and visual excellence.”

The outstanding visuals were achieved by uniting traditional cel work with CGI. For many film fans this is the 1963 Porche 911 of anime.   Like that car there have been many changes over the years,  and each iteration has its fans.   These include Mamoru’s  Ghost In The Shell 2; Innocence movie  and the TV Stand Alone Complex  series. 

Now we have a live action version of the original movie,  written by Jamie Moss, directed by Rupert Sanders and starring Scarlett Johansson.    In the 22 years since the first film was made technology has changed  even more radically than motor technology has in 50.    In the 2017 movie we see live actors moving in 3D CGI environments unimaginable in 1995.   The CGI also transforms  the actor’s bodies into enhanced or totally replaced versions.     But which is the better movie?   

I think that is a stupid question.   The 1995 movie did what it did just about as well as it could be done.   The visuals were remarkable at that time, just as those for Metropolis were in their time, and those of the 2017 movie are today.   The ability to shoot in Hong Kong’s streets and then reproduce them with huge holographic adverts floating in and  above them is as remarkable as the adverts in Blade Runner.

Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell both  explore long standing and still contemporary issues.    What is the human ghost in the artificial shell?    The Japanese word translated here as ghost  is understood in Japan as being nearer to consciousness rather than spirit or soul.   The title also  refers to Arthur Koestler’s book Ghost in the Machine which looked at the  duality of mind and brain, and adopted the ‘scientific determinism’ stance that our mind is simply a product of our physical brain, rejecting the idea of soul.   The movie  asks what constitutes  ‘human’ identity when cybernetic physical and intellectual ‘enhancements’ are available and a cyber-brain can interface directly with both a body and the digitally connected world?    Is identity simply about memory?  Are we what we remember –or what we do? 

That last question is raised frequently in the new film and outside it as advancing life expectancy brings with it increased occurrence of memory loss by dementia.    If our consciousness could be digitally reproduced and stored would it still be human?   
And there are sexuality/gender issues here too.  

To simply glance at the gender issue we see that the cyber-cop Motoko  looks like a woman, but she cannot reproduce.   We do not know if she can even have sex.    Sharalyn Orbaugh pointed out that in the first  Ghost in the Shell movie we find “a narrative that is all about the nature of sex/gender identity and self-identity in general in a future world where sexual reproduction has given way to mechanical replication,"   raising the question of "reproductive sexuality in a posthuman subject”.   Austin Corbett noted that Motoko is "overtly feminine, and clearly non-female."   Carl Silvio has called the first Ghost in the Shell a "resistant film", due to its inversion of traditional gender roles, its "valorization of the post-gendered subject", and its de-emphasis of the sexual specificity of the material body.    All this is slightly paradoxical in a movie where Scarlett  Johansson so often naked – without ever seeing a human body.   That is also true/not true in her  remarkable performance in  Under The Skin.    

So did I enjoy the new movie?   Yes.   I am a fan of the original, and this film honours it, sticking close to the dialogue, plot and visual design.   I was glad to see it even includes  Gabriel the basset hound, Masomu’s companion in real life who  appears in most of his movies.  But the plot is now more coherent, the live action more engaging, the visualization is stunning.    I am sympathetic to (most) of the implicit values of the movie which are shared, I believe, with those of Blade Runner.  I summed them up in my original Blade Runner review as asking ‘what is life?’ and answering ‘Life is precious’.    Oshii has said “In this day and age when everything is uncertain, we should all think about what to value in life and how to coexist with others."

There is, however, something rather haunting about the original, enhanced by its amazing soundtrack,  almost a spiritual dimension  that the new film rather lacks.  

Scarlett Johansson is good at this kind of action heroics.   She also has a sly sense of humour that occasionally peeks out.   It is good to see Juliette Binoche as Dr. Oulet after the dreadful Godzilla.   “Beat’ Takeshi Kitano as Aramaki, head of Section 9. Pilou Asbaek, a newcomer to me, plays Sergeant Batou convincingly. 

So what about the ‘whitewashing’ issue of casting Johansson in the lead?    On the Roger Ebert review site Angelica Jade Bastien wrote
“No matter where you come down in the debate over this, it becomes hard to ignore when you notice how the most important characters are white or that every time Aramaki speaks Japanese the Major only replies in English. “Ghost in the Shell” makes the troubling decision to use Japanese culture, visual flourishes, and source material but decides that a Japanese actress as the lead would be a step too far.”

I wonder if she has bothered to watch the original movie.    In that the Major does not look at all Japanese.   There are many other Caucasian characters in the original, including the loyal (devoted?) Sergeant Batou, Dr. Oulet, the creator of the body and interface, and Dr. Dahlin,  a junior scientist who works for her, as well as the two garbage men.    Ochii had his original movie dubbed into English because he wanted it seen in the West, and those who criticize the  casting of Ms. Johansson  do not say how this very expensive movie would ever have been made without her heading the cast.   Do they name any world class – and world renowned – bankable Japanese actresses who could have got it ‘green lighted’?    Besides which the world of manga is filled with ‘round-eyed’ characters, male and female.    


So if you are new to the world of Ghost go and enjoy it.  And if you are a manga fan enjoy the idea that this film might encourage many people to watch more.   Including the original.